Bucs believe they have offensive depth, plan to use it

Following up in the previous post about the plans to use additional personnel on offense this weekend, it's clear after talking to coach Raheem Morris this afternoon that the Bucs plan to abide by a less-is-more approach on offense.

Take their handling of Kareem Huggins' situation, for example.

The coaching staff clearly second guessed its decision not to use Huggins on offense against the Browns, probably because he still has some weaknesses in his game. But they're apparently willing to live with them.

"You sit down as a coaching staff and you want to do something, you say you’re going to do it, you have the confidence in Kareem," Morris said. "It’s easy to say and harder to (show) it when you get in the game. But then you look back at the game and you start to relax. You just have to go out there and let the young man play. That will be something we look forward to doing this week, getting better as a coaching staff and putting the young man in that situation where he’s going to run the ball and not being worried about protection so much.

"The young man knows it. Just throw him out there and let him do it. He’s proven he can do it in the preseason. . . You have to play the other guys."

This is not lip service, Morris said, but more of a philosophy -- one he learned long ago as a defensive backs coach.

"I was fortunate enough when I was a young coach to realize the benefit of playing multiple people and not just playing Ronde Barber and John Lynch and having those guys play every snap of 65-play game," Morris said. "I just found out that if you get 50 great snaps from Ronde . . . or 40 great snaps from Lynch or 50 great snaps from (former Buc) Phillip Buchanon, it’s better than getting 80 but 50 of those snaps are bad. It’s just using the depth and the people you have around you. We’ll get better at that on offense. That’s something we have to learn and something we have to do."

Even in their handling of the left guard situation, the Bucs are applying this philosophy to some extent. While there still is very much a competitive reason behind their plans to work Jeremy Zuttah back into the lineup (even though Morris says otherwise), the Bucs will benefit from having a fresh player at left guard by using a rotation.

"It’s really warm down here," Morris said. "We’re trying to get people fresh and keep people healthy. It’s kind of the mentality I had at safety where I played three safeties for a long time. We had the ability to play more than two corners for a long time. We split time with Geno (Hayes) and Quincy (Black), we just haven’t made an announcement. We have good players and good depth and that’s a sign of us getting better in different areas."

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